Ubuntu is based on stable Debian. The primary purpose of Debian stable is for building custom server software and creating one off -ish scripted tools that just work and are online for an extended amount of time. Many peripheral software packages are regularly updated and do not respect backwards compatibility, especially the smaller hobby type projects.

With a stable kernel, only packages that always maintain backwards compatibility are regularly updated. Everything else is frozen at the time of release. You can override this behavior by manually adding a PPA repository entry in the package manager, but you’ll have to figure this out as the in for will not be posted in most tutorial information for the software you are running.

The main reason I am telling you is because no one told me this info. I started with a version of Ubuntu over a decade ago and struggled for awhile because I did not know the versions of packages I had were all outdated compared to the documentation I was following.

Generally, most of us recommend running Mint or Fedora to get started. Mint is like Ubuntu but a little better configured.

In general, few people run the specialty distros like this outright by themselves. There is nothing wrong with doing so if you want. They are more often used as virtual machines or demonstration examples. They often have sets of packages that may be hard to configure. Eventually, you get comfortable with your distro of choice, then you start using your own mix of sandboxing tools to deal with the package and library dependencies for the stuff you actually want to run. Also at this point, the ways you manage your base system come into play, like I have never actually used the w11 that came with my computer. It has never seen the internet. In my opinion, Fedora has the best pre-init software and has never caused me problems with my dual boot setup. I’ve played with several flavors of Fedora, and would still be running Silverblue if it wasn’t for running CUDA stuff.

There is nothing wrong with trying Ubuntu Studio. Just be aware, stuff may be out of date, and how sandboxing is handled is something to look out for. They may have Conda or python venv, podman (FOSS docker without the BS), toolbox (CLI sandboxing), distrobox (better CLI sandboxing), boxes (virtual machines), or others. Or they may have dependencies on the host machine. These are the things that come up and may cause issues over time. It isn’t hard, you just learn as you go.